The new Aronia cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventors, Mark Henry Brand and Bryan Allan Connolly in Storrs, Conn. The objective of the breeding program was to produce new Aronia varieties like ‘Viking’ but with narrower and shorter form. The cross resulting in this new variety was made during May of 2010.
The seed parent is the, unpatented variety referred to as Aronia melanocarpa ‘UC012’. The pollen parent is the unpatented variety Aronia mitschurinii ‘Viking’. The new variety was discovered in June of 2011 by the inventors in a group of seedlings resulting from the 2010 crossing, in a greenhouse in Storrs, Conn.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘UCONNAM166’ by nodal initiation tissue culture was first performed during the June of 2011, at a laboratory in Storrs, Conn. Subsequent propagation by softwood cuttings has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type in 3 successive generations.